My Truant Pen

Ignore the Mom behind the curtain

I know that I could be accused of painting rosy pictures of life. I’m sure you’ve all heard of the Facebook effect, where it seems like all your Facebook friends are immaculately put together, live in perfect houses, go on great adventures, and generally live a life far more awesome than your own. This is because all of us edit our narratives. We want to share the exciting/flattering bits, and tend to downplay the mundane/embarrassing ones. (And if we don’t, unless we are FANTASTIC writers who could make imaginary dialogues between deodorants hilarious – looking at you here Amalah – our readership is quite limited.)

Anyway, what I’m saying is that I know my blog is like that. All the fun stuff, all the picturesque stuff, all the deep thinking, and none of the “I’m a complete mess”. But guess what… sometimes? I’m a complete mess.

Let’s begin our story when our heroine left work 15 minutes late because she was in a not-fun meeting. (As opposed to a fun meeting, which happens roughly never.) So. Late. Rainy night. I check my text message alert, and it’s riiiiight on the borderline between freeway or back roads.* I call to see if it’s changed, and I find out that it got really bad on the freeway, so I opt for my backroad commute. Tick tock, tick tock, the daycare clock!

Did I mention my husband has been in Florida for a week, and although due back will not be in time to pick up the kids? No, I didn’t because I never let teh intarwebs know these kind of things in advance, just in case. But Adam was in Florida, so there was no calling him if I didn’t make it on time (which is my usual backup).

Then, just as I had fully committed to the backroads route and there was no turning back… whammo. Traffic stopped moving. Like, one or two cars a light. There’s never a backup here!?! Five minutes, I didn’t sweat. But then it turned to ten, fifteen, twenty. When I had 15 minutes to do 30 – 45 minutes of commuting, I panicked. I called all my parent friends (including those I should have known were like, you know, in Dallas.. hoping he was kidding when he told me who I was interrupting…) asking if anyone could pick up my kids. Of course, it’s extra complicated because who wanders around with two extra car seats? No one! In fact, almost none of my friends has a car that can seat two extra kids never mind car seats. And it was raining, hard! And super dark! Yay! Fun! Finally, I reached one friend (actually there at that moment picking up her kids) and we cobbled together a plan that involved her taking my kids to my neighbor’s house and then returning to the center for her own. I gave my permission over the phone to the daycare people to release my kids almost as I was passing the accident.

Phew. Can I say this? Three years ago, I wouldn’t have known what to do. I don’t know how I got this lucky, but I have awesome friends who have my back and are there for me when I need them, and I am SO GRATEFUL. I may be alone while my husband’s gone, but I’m not unsupported.

Anyway, so I come home. I park my car. I put my backpack inside, and head down the payment full of adrenalin and frustration to my neighbor’s house to retrieve my children. And just as my sidewalk joins my neighbors, I stepped on a rock wrong, and went down HARD.

I had one of those moments that stretched very long. I was on the ground, rain falling poetically onto my face, right leg obviously badly scratched up, but truly wondering if I had just popped the graft on my left leg, and I would have to do this fantastic surgery all over again. With the rush of pain and adrenalin and fear, I couldn’t tell how bad my left leg was. I could tell I’d done something non-zero, but was it epic? Was it a pull? Was it just the persistent tendon tightness we’re fighting at PT and nothing wrong at all? I had to wait, on the ground, for several very long minutes to find out. I’m extremely happy to report that based on knee function and subsequent pain, it is nothing serious. However, I’m deeply saddened to report that my absolute favorite pair of tights that are incredibly comfortable have come to the end of their lives. Also, I did a number on my shoe. Finally, I also scratched up my good leg (but I care less because eh! It’s only a flesh wound!)

Are you getting tired of pictures of my leg injuries?

I picked myself back up and continued down. Things improved. I walked in on my neighbors feeding my children. They very generously put a plate out for me too. I sat at the table and watched my children rough-housing and being rude and periodically yelling things at them like, “No throwing Christmas ornaments at the dog!” and I was just so very very grateful that I wasn’t alone.

Then I came home, and put them to bed over an hour early, because oh. Those children. Based on the fact they both went to sleep, I think they must have been tired. Then I had to do worky work for an hour. Now I’m writing an unflattering blog post about my own incompetence.

So what about you? Have you ever had a day like this – falling far short of tragic but definitely rising to the level of highest annoyance?

* This is super helpful, so let me share. Navteq allows you to set up a commute and a schedule. Then every day you set up, it texts you a numerical value of how your commute is. I have mine set to check the route at 4:45. So every work day at 4:45 I get a text message with a number. Through experience I know that at 2 or over, I’m better off taking back roads. Additionally, in the text message, you can call a number at any point and ask how your commute is now and they’ll give you the latest conditions. I would pay for this service, but I get it for free. It’s fantastic for those of us with highly variable commutes.

Life without TV

The other day, I got the cable bill in the mail. Like so many Americans, I bundled cable, internet and phone together into one gargantuan package that I justified because “Cable is only a little more than internet alone, and I cannot live without internet.” But this cable bill was a little different. Like 100% different. It was within a few dollars of double what it usually was. Apparently the two year contract had expired and this was my new price.

SURPRISE!

I, of course, called the cable company and said “no way, what can you do for me”. Comcast generously offered to only increase the bill by $80 instead of $100. Thanks, guys. But no.

So I called Verizon and negotiated their three way package for roughly the same price I’d previously been paying at Comcast. I took time on a Saturday to return all the stuff to Comcast in person. (Thanks for making that so easy Comcast… not.) And we were all set. Right?

Except we were really annoyed by Verizon. The UI on their menu was between bad and appalling. There didn’t seem to be anything on. It all just seemed like the same thing we’d had before, but lamer. And I took a close look at that $130 bill. Was it really, after all, that necessary? I mean, we don’t watch that much tv. We already have Netflix. We already have Amazon Prime. We have a ton of kid’s DVDs. Once you net out all the things available that way, how much is really left that we’re paying for? The answer is: Red Sox baseball, Patriot’s football, Nick Jr. and the Macy’s Parade. The difference between the triple pay package and just internet service is $60. As much as I love baseball… that’s like $1460 over the period of a two year contract.

So in our “30 day satisfaction period” we cancelled our cable service. (Note: Verizon sends postage paid boxes. Much more convenient than Comcast!) Then we bought a Roku. For $100 one time, we now have a device designed to stream digital media to our tv. It has a beautiful interface and about 10 buttons. We bought a nice version for our big tv, and connected our two ancillary tvs (guest room and laundry room) with less expensive versions that cost about $50 each. So for $200 one time, we just enabled all our tvs with massive amounts of content. This is particularly nice since with Comcast we were paying roughly $10/month to have tv in the laundry room. With Verizon, it was only $5/month, but there was no guide. It’s amazing how spoiled we are since my childhood – it was difficult to operate the tv without a guide! So at $60/month, the ROI on the Rokus is just over three months.

Going back to the “what we can’t get online” list, in order to get the Macy’s parade (or the news, for example), we would probably need to get an antenna and digital converter. I’m not sure we’ll do this since we watch very little network tv, the antenna sounds like a bit of a pain, and we’re not missing much.

However, when it comes to live sports, I’m SOL. We’d originally thought that my existing MLB subscription would permit me to get baseball. But for me Red Sox games are blacked out with MLB tv (which I’d be able to stream through the Roku as well). NFL is similarly locked down, or maybe worse. So I have a choice: cobble together my sports hobby through radio and strategically getting invited to friend’s house (more plausible for football than baseball), just stop caring very much about the local teams (I’m so time crunched this might be a viable solution), or spend $60 a month on cable. For a long time I’ve made that latter decision. But as the other media choices have gotten richer and richer, it feels increasingly extortionate and the number of things I truly want cable for is down to those two: the Pats and the Sox. It’s just not enough.

So what am I watching on the Roku these days? Adam and I have gotten into Burn Notice. It is a fun spy-thriller, with a mostly off-screen body count and amusing mixture of plots and subplots. Well acted, well written, and there are about 60 hour-long episodes on Netflix. That’s like my tv watching for a year. It is so convenient. I can pick up an in-progress episode on any of the three tvs. Or, alternately, watch it on the iPad while travelling or upstairs in the bedroom. (Heck, the Roku is so tiny we actually brought it with us to DC in case we had extra time at night while the boys were asleep. They made sure this didn’t happen by going to sleep at 10 each night, but it was a possibility!)

Finally, I figured that while I could go BACK to cable any time my yearning for a Sox broadcast got that powerful, the cable companies lock you into two year contracts. This was my chance to go cable-free and see how good or bad it was, without commitment.

So how about you? Do you have cable? If so, have you ever thought of giving it up? If you don’t, what do you miss and how do you get around it?

Great Thanksgiving Road Trip

I am a holiday traditionalist, I admit. My Christmas preparations involve a living tree, a medley of meaningful ornaments gathered over several decades and four straight weeks of non-strop Christmas music. I still think of myself as the kind of person who does Thanksgiving with the family and the pies and the sitting around telling stories about how Seattle used to be. There’s only one problem with this bit of identity… yeah. I have done that exactly once in the last, oh, sixteen years? (The year Grey was born I went home for Thanksgiving.)

You see, it’s like this. I don’t have any family in the area, nor does my husband. I don’t really want to travel on Thanksgiving. And I host 30+ people for Thanksgiving dinner a scant 10 days before Turkey Day itself, so I don’t want to make the meal and find people to come eat it because, well, I already did. The other day someone asked my son what we were doing for Thanksgiving and Grey responded, “We don’t celebrate Thanksgiving.” Gah! We do! We just do so in a weird way! Now often I have gotten very gracious and lovely invitations to friends’ houses to celebrate. Heck, two years in a row I cadged invitations to one of my college friends’ parents’ houses. So we have suffered no lack of welcome or turkey. But the obligation of Thanksgiving, the feeling that there is a particular thing we have to do, that is entirely lacking.

And if you think about it for a moment, that is tremendously freeing. I have a four day period where there is no where we have be and nothing we have to do. Liberty!

A few weeks ago, one of my Scooby-addled children informed me that he wanted to see “a real live mummy”. This seemed like a reasonable request. At first I considered which museums in Boston might contain said Egyptian relic. Then I thought that the really good mummies were in New York. Except I hate New York. Then I thought that the really great museums are in Washington DC. And you know, I’ve been meaning to go to Washington DC for like five years now.

Then it dawned on me that I have four uncommitted days.

ROAD TRIP!

We left at about 11 am on Thanksgiving morning. I remember in college, when I had no where to go on Thanksgiving and all the placed to eat on campus were closed, I felt very very sorry for myself on Thanksgiving. However, I felt not a lick of remorse as we dined at McDonalds for lunch, or Denny’s for dinner. (What? I’m traveling with 3 and 6 year old boys on Thanksgiving. You think I’m going to stop anyplace that has cloth tablecloths?!?!) There was some nasty and tiring traffic on the Mass Pike, but after that we zooooomed! This was our first extended road trip – our previous adventures having topped out at two or three hours. The boys were complete troopers, and honestly did better than I expected. We came in late, lost and tired to DC at 10 pm that night.

Yesterday was a sublime day, weather wise, here in the District of Columbia. Although my intention had been to hie immediately to the Museum of Natural History (hellooo Mummies and Dinosaurs!) the lure of the Washington Monument was too strong and instead we hied ourselves the length of the Mall, explaining the various wars, conflicts and heroes in mostly age-appropriate ways as we wandered. Then we went to the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, where Thane bounced like a pinball between mummy exhibits. By midafternoon, someone was in desperate need of a nap, and the kids seemed tired too, so we came back and had an all family snooze. Indeed, as I write I am surrounded on all sides by sleeping menfolk. We spent the evening dining with some friends in the area, our kids playing with theirs.

Today the morning was the Museum of Air and Space. It was pretty fun, but Thane is woefully underslept and it is starting to show. Also, he has no respect for barriers/fences/ribbons. Also, he plops down on the ground all the time and declares, “I’m not going to _____”. My cajoling muscles are weary beyond belief. But he was fascinated by the astronauts and costumes, and demanded that he be permitted to wear the moon gear. We all thoroughly enjoyed the planetarium before making good our escape.

Thane and the Astronaut Suit of Great Interest

By the way, since all of you are far more worldly and experienced than I am, you already know this. But were you aware that admission to all Smithsonian Museums is totally free? My Bostonian expectations included $20/head/museum. But with free… well heck. You can go in for 30 minutes and it’s awesome and you can leave and not worry about how much it cost! Parking, on the other hand, is $40 a day….

In half an hour I’ll wake everyone up, and we’ll go to the American Indian Museum. Thane is trying to figure out what his next obsession is. Mummies, astronauts and Native Americans are all strong candidates. Tonight, I think we’ll take the boys to see the Muppet Movie. Tomorrow, we do the 11 hour trip in reverse.

In my worse moments, I wonder what the heck I’m thinking and why didn’t I just stay at home and have the kids watch tv all weekend like a sane parent. But most of the time, I watch the wide-eyed wonder, insightful questions and bouncy kids and think that this was a fantastic idea.

Thane at Three

Thane's school pictures - last year and this year

Having told you about the person Grey is at six, I thought I’d enlighten you on Thane at three. First, the physical. Thane is 39 1/2 inches tall (3 feet and 3.5 inches) and 35 pounds. By my admittedly unprofessional analysis, that makes him 95th percentile for height and about 75th percentile for weight. He has glorious golden curls, which are currently way too long and have gotten California-surfer-boy unkempt. The angelic aspect of his curls and features is much moderated by the fact his face is never, ever clean. It takes about 20 seconds between washing his face and having it somehow, miraculously get dirty. Thane is a sturdy child. Currently one of Thane and Grey’s favorite games involves Grey wearing a blanket and making ominous “boo” noises while chasing Thane around the house. Oh! The thumping and squealing! Thane is actually a bit stronger than you really want in a just-turned-three-year-old

Thane subsists on a diet of entirely protein. He loves, cheese, meat, bacon, butter and yogurt. He disdains not only vegetables, but most carbohydrates too, making me wonder if he really is my son. He magnanimously makes exceptions for processed sugar, of course. In fairness, he also like applesauce and bananas. You probably don’t care about how food emerges from the other end, but I’m happy to report that Thane is 80% potty trained. He goes whole days dry (including naps!). He’s finally crossed the wonderous #2 bridge. If my memory serves, he’s way ahead of where his brother was. I think it is plausible that I will never buy another diaper for my children. (Nighttime pullups being an entirely different category, of course.)

You intellectually know, before you have children, that they are different from each other. This is very different from actually having children who are different from each other. I think this makes it harder for me to notice, or believe, some things that are true about Thane. One of the key attributes of Thane is his sequential obsessions. They started, I think, with cars. Following cars were stickers. Then we went to dinosaurs. Dinosaurs were replaced by puzzles (my favorite – he spent long periods quiet and was a puzzle-savant doing 60 piece puzzles at two and a half years old). Puzzles promptly fell out of favor, to be replaced by Scooby Doo. I sense Scooby Doo is waning, but have no idea what will replace it – awkward timing what with the birthday and Christmas buying spree forthcoming. It’s also awkward because other people pay attention to what he likes (oh, he loves puzzles!) and get them for him. Of course, he’s moved on. I have no idea what to recommend for Christmas.

One of the things everyone comments on about Thane is his verbal ability. Thane speaks clearly, with complicated sentences and wide vocabulary. What people do not understand about this is that Thane is so verbal because he practices. All. The. Time. And he doesn’t practice listening, he practices talking. In fact, his listening is so questionable, that I even had his hearing checked. (It was fine.) It is really fun to listen to him talk, or tell a story.

Thane loves books. One of his favorites is Anansi the Spider. He also adores these awful Scooby Doo books which he checks out of the library every single Library & Pizza night and insist that that’s what I must read to him. Since my rule is that I read whatever Thane wants on library pizza night, I’ve had ample opportunity to work on my Shaggy voice.

My littlest boy likes to sing, and talks a lot about music. He has a pretty nice voice for a preschooler. He also likes “playing piano”. He often demands songs he knows doesn’t exist, “Sing the Anansi song!” But at night he always asks for “Star of the County Down”. He has a good memory, and knows all the words to lots of songs. He also remembers all the words to prayers. Listening to his rendition of the Lord’s Prayer is very sweet.

There are so many things that make a Thane. He still loves his Puppy (who is a bunny rabbit). He loves his pink Dora sunglasses. He tries to shape reality with his words, “I AM seven years old!” or “It IS Monday!” He snuggles with us every morning at exactly 6:45. He wants to do whatever his brother is doing. He contains multitudes of words. He is a joy and a delight.

Mocksgiving 2011

So. I’ll admit I find it flattering that one or two of you have commented that I am remiss in my updating. It’s true. One day this month is not up to even my appalling standards. So let me give you the quick answer to your many questions.

First, I was treated for pneumonia last Friday and sent home with an actual written doctor’s note saying not to go to work until Wednesday. I took the weekend “off” (no church, not much childcare), but had training that could not be repeated Monday and Tuesday. Also no sick leave left. I love antibiotics and am feeling mostly better, but still am tired and lack stamina.

This weekend was Mocksgiving 2011. My tally was two pies, two other desserts, one 22 pound turkey that took an hour and a half longer than it should have but was perfect, five pounds mashed potatoes, 4 large butternut squash halves, five loaves of bread, one canned batch of cranberry sauce (particularly good) and stuffing. 28 adults, 4 children and 2 babies partook of the feast. The furthest visitors came from California this year.

I was explaining Mocksgiving to someone this week, and they said, “Oh, it’s like a feast!” And I had an epiphany. It is a feast! That is why I do it, because to serve a feast to the ones you love is a great gift. It is an abundance and overabundance of good things, a cornucopia of friendship, an overflowing of plenty and dishes that include butter. It’s funny that I never thought of it quite that way, but it is an apt description of what I was doing, and of why I do it every year.

Also, the friends I always borrow plates and silverware from actually brought us eight brand new settings all our own this year. Heh. Yeah, I guess that does make sense. But it was TRADITIONAL, darn it!

I probably say this every year, but this was one of the loveliest Mocksgivings yet. Other than the stress of a tardy turkey, it seemed much mellower than than some have been. There were more board games than usual. The night ended in a fantastic series of Werewolf games. There were more new faces than usual, but also a delightful balanced of the familiar Mocksgiving faces. The weather cooperated. It was great.

So now I’m through the five parties in two months section of my year. Phew! Better yet, I’ve posted my photos of this weekend! The random black dog was an assignment for Grey’s classroom – Dudley visits the around the class and we journal his adventures with our Kindergartners.*

Anyway, happy Mocksgiving!

*No one warned me how much homework *I* would have once school started! Also, I would like to protest that it is unfair to go after my neighbor the graphic designer and her “Dudley at the MFA” spread.

Reasons blogs are useful

The doctor asked me, “How long have you had this?” I answered with confidence, “At least since October 14.” “Hmm… that’s quite a while.”

Sure is, doctor.

Last week I was sure I had a sinus infection (when your molars hurt, that’s the hint). I did get a prescription for antibiotics, but an infection I might have had just laughed them off. HAHAHAH!

This week I had a doozy of a week. Monday was a work from home day due to having no power, followed by Halloween. Tuesday, I was at work at 7:15 am and returned home from work at 10:30 pm or so. Wednesday was another all day, intense meeting with no time for even checking my private email. Thursday at work was an attempt to catch up from all that, but when I got home, I couldn’t handle even gaming. I went to bed at 8, right after dinner. I woke up at 7 this morning not much improved.

It seemed like, maybe, it was time to go to the doctor’s. I made an appointment for 2:30.

At 12:45 I got a phone call from my son’s school nurse. He’d bumped his head during recess and needed to be picked up. I made the pffft sound in my head, believing that they were overreacting, and moved even more meetings in order to go pick him up, knowing I’d have to drag him to my appointment.

Sorry kid, I’m not taking you to the doctor because I’m totally more sick than you are injured. He was jealous of my x-rays though. He says he wants x-rays. They are pretty cool, but not as exciting as you might think. I haven’t heard the results yet, but my dr. said that she was pretty sure it was pneumonia and that she would treat it accordingly.

So now I have a note from the doctor saying “Brenda is really sick”, a rescue inhaler (yes, it is that bad), some high power antibiotics, and a weekend to recover.

Here’s hoping that works!

The grippe

A minor cold has settled on my household. My husband thinks he has allergies, but I think he has incremental sniffling. My youngest son sports varsuvial flows of snot in the charming manner of 2 year olds. I’m congested and sneezy and sniffly. And my eldest son has a bit of a cough. Welcome cold season!

So I, of course, sent everyone in for everyone’s activities today because we do not stop living our life when we have colds or the world economy would come to a screeching halt. I was sitting on traffic in my morning commute, yuppee cup of Starbucks in hand, when the Bluetooth car stereo rang and displayed the name of the school nurse. This is how you know you live in the 21st century. The school nurse said Grey had a cough and was too sick to be at school.

I took the next exit and went, in the driving rain, to pick up my son. Any time I have to go to his school, the rain miraculously drives. It’s thematic.

I pick up my sick kid. I found him in the nurses’ office, looking fine, proactively eating his lunch. He’s an innovator like that. The nurse confided that some kids had gotten pneumonia lately. (Pneumonia is a secondary infection, folks. It’s not generally contagious. Sending him home will not prevent pneumonia.)

Ah, modern parenting. I still dialed in to my conference call (9 to noon). I’m probably getting as much or more done here at home with my son.

Childcare is the weirdest commercial purchase. It’s a huge cost. At the height, it easily dwarfed our mortgage payments to put two kids in a medium-cost center that doesn’t even provide a hot lunch. And these childcare facilities can basically refuse to provide the service you’ve purchased at any time. Today, for example. He has a cold, but I still needed to pick him up and provide the childcare myself, even though I did not and do not believe he’s very sick. (And if you’re wondering, we do pay for Kindergarten at our public school.) You know you can’t possibly pay someone enough to take care of your child, and when you map it out by hour it seems ridiculously low, but it’s still your biggest single line item. Then there are the holidays off you don’t get, the in-service days, the snow days, the half-days and your complete lack of options on the topic.

Ah well. I’m getting my work done – being lucky enough to work in the sort of job where I can. I am getting to spend some quality time with my neat kid. And his cough has completely disappeared after the first hour… as I knew it would. And TGIF.

Makes preserves, and redeems us

I’m sitting in the kitchen, waiting for my apple butter to cook. It’s mid-October, so unless I get 70 apples on Monday (it’s happened before…) I’m probably done with my seasonal canning for the year. I have a farm share – a double fruit share and a theoretically small but is actually vast vegetable share. I try, as much as possible, to do my preserving from this local, fresh, organic produce. So with my source of prepaid goodies ending soon, I’ll hang up my magnetic lid grabber, at least for now.

I feel like this was an off year for jam. I blame it entirely on plums. Previous years, I’ve gotten loads of plums — significant amounts of 3 or 4 varietals. There were Shiro Plums and black plums and Italian prune plums and “I don’t know, they’re just plums” plums. (There have never been Damson plums, to my tremendous disappointment. This might be the lamest bucket list item ever, but I really want to make damson plum jam.) This year, we got Italian prune plums once! Not nearly enough to turn into jam, either! So I made at least three fewer batches of plum jam than in previous years. I even repeatedly went to farmer’s markets looking for plums and found NADDA. Apparently plums aren’t hip. But man, they make delicious jam. I may yet break down and buy (shudder) supermarket plums and turn them into jam. We’ll see how big the rebellion in the troops is before we take such a drastic step.

Also on my weirdo bucket list: crabapple jelly. I can’t find a source of crabapples, and of course nobody but nobody sells crabapples. So if you have a crabapple tree (or know of an unloved one) and live in the greater Boston area, let me know. I pay in jam.

Also also: one of these days I’m going to make rosehip jelly. Slightly easier to find than crabapples, but require the chutzpah to go to some random shrub and start harvesting.

What did I make this year? I made:
2x Strawberry jam (a perennial favorite)
1x Strawberry rhubarb (which tastes identical to the strawberry)
1x Concord Grape jelly (check that one off my bucket list!)
1x Blueberry jelly (no on in my family likes it, but the farmshare gives me blueberries by the bucket and it makes a nice gift)
1x Peach butter (a labor of love!)
1x Apple butter (makes a huge amount)

I’d been thinking about making hot pepper jelly, but my neighbor made some and I figured that was enough hot pepper jelly for one street for this year.

I was thinking about making some of the more unusual recipes from my beloved “Ball Book of Home Preserving”. There’s a curried apple chutney that would help if I only get 45 apples next week, which sounds fascinating and exotic. Oh, and I think I’ll preserve some Pomegranate molasses, because I need it for my favorite cranberry sauce, and it’s a pain to make during Mocksgiving, and I only need a bit of it… so it would be a good candidate for canning.

Then again, if I never peel and core another apple it might be too soon.

Oh, also, for those following the drama… I did get to remove my brace yesterday. Yay!

So tell me… which one of my jams sounds best? Why are there no plums to be had this year? What should I find a way to make happen

Preparing to exit disability

Four weeks ago tomorrow, I had ACL replacement surgery, as well as two meniscus tear trimmings. Since then, nearly every step I have taken has been taken with a ginormous brace on my knee. I spent the first week after the surgery on the couch with a near constant ice pack on my knee. I didn’t work at all that week. The second week I was on two crutches, plus big brace. I still spent hours with my knee iced. I worked from home for 6 – 7 hours a day, and was totally exhausted. The third week I returned to work, on crutches. I started putting a bit more weight on it, and feeling and looking better. This last week, I ditched my crutches. I’ve started taking the stairs with alternating feet, like a normal person (even if normal people don’t usually have a death-grip on the hand rail). I’ve sped up, and the pain is more or less gone.

I’ve been in physical therapy twice a week since the second week. I am pretty far ahead of “plan” for returning to normal knee function. My brace has created near permanent welts in my withered left leg – stripes of rashy skin at regular intervals. I’m sincerely hoping to get permission to ditch the darn thing at my physical therapy tomorrow. When that happens, I will more or less be as ok as I was before surgery (you know, when I just had three torn tendons). The brace actually makes me limp (I can’t quite have normal motion with it), so once it’s gone, people will be unlikely to be able to see that my ability is different than normal. And in another week or two, it will probably BE pretty normal, although I have a long road to full strength and agility.

This is a transition I am very lucky to make. There’s nothing like wearing an ankle to thigh metal brace to let people know you’re disabled. By my disability, such as it is, is a fleeting one. It’s not an identity, it’s a condition. But my time on crutches and limping has given me a greater sympathy and understanding for those who can’t leave their disabilities behind with a month of PT and icing.

This summer, I went on a hike with my family, including my Dad. I have always known that my father was considered medically disabled, but with the self-centeredness of youth, I never considered what it felt like for him. I never thought about what was scary, or hard, or tiring. My knee with the three torn tendons was probably about on par (or maybe a bit better) than the knee function my father has had since the 70s. I found that many of the mannerisms I think of as “Dad” (going down stairs one foot at a time, for example) are things that you have to do when your knees don’t work. But I never remember him complaining about it, or shying away from uneven ground, or popping Ibuprofen after a long walk.

I’ve also gotten the “what’s wrong with you attention”. Other than my fervent desire to have a better story than I do, I haven’t minded. Everyone notices I’m limping. Everyone says, “What’s wrong”. Depending on the time and my mood I joke about it “You should see the other guy!”, explain in a positive way, “I had surgery a few weeks ago, and now I’m thrilled that I’m down to just a brace and no crutches!” or go into the dire details, “So about 13 years ago I went skiing for the first time….” But it’s not my identity. It’s a phase, not my life. And it’s visible and well marked, so when I’m going slowly everyone waits. People hold the door for me, and don’t start inching forward when I’m crossing the street. No one treats my Dad with that courtesy – not even his thoughtless middle child.

I will be supremely grateful for a fully functional knee. You don’t know how much you miss kneeling until you have to give a two year old a bath without kneeling. I miss being active and bouncing my way up the stairs. I miss it being inconsequential to go up to the third floor. I’m tired of thinking about my leg, the footing. I’m tired of thinking when I need to get out of bed to check on a crying child, “I should really put on my brace first. The bedroom in the dark is exactly the kind of situation where I could take a horribly wrong step.” I’m tired of planning my wardrobe around what is loose enough or tight enough to work with my metal accessory. I’m so delighted that my recovery has been as fast as it has, and my movement and strength are returning. But most of all, I’m grateful I will be able to leave my disability behind. And I spend a moment thinking of all those who live with disability – visible and invisible – at all times.

Procurement of apples in celebration of explorers

So I have learned through many long years that you should never, ever go apple picking on Columbus Day weekend. However, timing (and knees) being what they are… once again we found the only good weekend day for apple picking to be today – one day after Grey’s birthday party on an 85 degree October day.

It was packed. The traffic jam to get up the road to the orchard was the first of many lines. However, we eventually worked our way to a point where we could hand over our money and wander to the remoter parts of the orchard. It was a lovely (if tiring) time. And yesterday was Grey’s birthday party! There was a large number of young folks wandering around, playing with legos and hitting each other with cardboard tubes. Then I fed them large amounts of sugar. It was fun.

This is all a lead in to say… I actually have pictures. I mean, this is only like 6 weeks worth of pictures on one of my two cameras. It includes: Hurricane Irene, walking in the Fells with Laureen, first day of Kindergarten, my “Last Ambulatory Weekend” party, Grey baking my birthday cake, Grey’s birthday party & apple picking.

Fall2011